You can't shout "fire" in a
crowded theater. Unless you yell "aim" first.

Okay, you
can't falsely
shout fire in a crowded theater, but the point remains that there are limits to
our constitutional rights. Or at least most people think there should be. Just
don't tell the National Rifle Association.

After
lobbying by the NRA, some states, including
Ohio , have
legalized carrying concealed weapons in bars. Setting aside the absurd constitutional issue
of an inviolable right to publicly bear arms while drunk, who thinks this is a
good idea? The same people who think the answer to the problem of guns in school
is more guns in school.

Justice
Scalia -- an NRA stooge -- interprets the Second Amendment so bizarrely, he
thinks it arguably
protects any arms that you can carry.
Grenades, rocket launchers, bazookas, Ted Nugent. Who knows?

To be fair,
most of these weapons wouldn't allow a person to kill any more people than high
powered assault rifles with high-magazine clips (with the possible exception of
Ted Nugent, whose anger is measured in megatons). Still, to assume or imply that
you have a right to bear these dangerous weapons is to betray your unfitness to
do so!

It's a good thing that we
don't have tactical, hand-held nuclear weapons. By Scalia's own logic, if they existed, we'd
arguably have a right to bear them. Ahh, concealed tactical nukes in bars. The
NRA can only hope.

Brett Cottrell studied political theory at Boise State and graduated from The George Washington University Law School. Academic wanderings aside, he's a native of Las Vegas, born and bred in Sin City. This explains a lot.
He is the author of The (more...)